← Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory
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Tom Bilyeu
You.
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Impact Theory Podcast Host
You're listening to the Impact Theory podcast, your source of empowering ideas and actionable techniques from the world's highest achievers. Join host Tom Bilyeu, serial entrepreneur and co founder of the billion dollar brand Quest Nutrition, on a journey to unlock your potential and realize your vision of success. Welcome to Impact Theory.
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Tom Bilyeu
What is up everybody? Welcome to another edition of AMA Live. I'm your host, Tom Bilyeu and I'm going to be taking your questions today. And it is going to be an immeasurable amount of fun and enjoyment. This is gonna be fantastic. And by the way, for those of you that don't know, we just launched our newest show called Health Theory. Please go check it out. That's on YouTube. It launched this morning at 7:30am PST. And I'm super stoked on this show one because if you really wanna optimize your mind, you've got to eat right, You've gotta exercise. I wish it weren't so. I wish you could just sit with a bowl of ice cream. That would be magical and do nothing and that you would be cognitively optimized. But sadly, that is not what nature has in store for us. So if you really want to get your mind right, you've got to focus on diet and exercise as well. Then also many of you know I grew up in a morbidly obese family and I've seen firsthand the toll on your just life and your ability to enjoy it. Longevity, everything, what happens when you're not in good health. And then also probably the biggest driving force of launching the show, if I'm honest, is my wife is going through. But it used to be literally at tragic proportions going through digestive issues. And that was absolute madness. All right? And so with that, I promised that I would learn all this shit and help my wife finally solve the problem. Cause she's been struggling with it for three years and for the first two it was pretty brutal. So finally I said, look I'm just going to become an expert in this. Doctors weren't helping. Even all the mad scientists that we had at Quest couldn't get us out of the problem. So ultimately, I had to buckle down, learn the stuff myself. And I thought, oh, my God. Encountering all these amazing people, all these incredible ideas, they're helping Lisa. And by the way, Mad shout out to impact theory alum and founder of viome, Naveen Jain, who's helped us so much with this, I cannot even begin to tell you. So, Naveen, you have my heart, and you know that at this point. All right, without further ado. Oh, today's episode is brought to you by the Grit Shirt. My man. Thank you for reminding me. There we go. Grit it out, motherfuckers. No matter what your problem is, I'm telling you, grit is the answer. Unless it's microbiome, then you're going to need grit and a whole lot of other information. All right, first question is from Robin Batista. This is via the Connect inbox. Hi, Tom. I'm 29 years old and am barely beginning to learn about growth mindset and taking ownership. I find myself getting distraught about where I am in life and question what I want to move towards. I feel so behind and find myself getting angry over the choices I've made and. And not having knowledge sooner. I'm afraid I'm too old to change. What advice do you have for me and how do I move out of this space? All right, so first and foremost, before I answer that question, I sent you a question I think yesterday. Yeah, it's done. Later. Okay, cool. So make sure we got that bad boy queued up. Nice. That one's next. Okay, so first of all, beating yourself up over not learning about the growth mindset earlier isn't going to help you. So the most powerful part about a growth mindset is realizing you can change at any time and really understanding that the only thing that matters is moving forward and you're going to do and believe that which moves you towards your goal. And so if beating yourself up over that is useful, then do it. But it's in small percentages helpful. But in large quantities, which it sounds like you're succumbing to, it is absolutely unhelpful. So because of that, you can just let it go. Now, that's been really impactful for me is understanding that I can let myself off the hook for being stupid, for having made poor decisions for such a terrifying amount of time, which I didn't find a growth mindset. Until I was 27. You said you're 29. Yeah. So we're only two years apart. And assuming that I didn't find it on day one of my 27th year, which I did, not that unfortunately. And I thought it was 26. My wife broke my heart the other day when we actually ran the math and I realized it was 27. So yeah, I get it. I, you know, even just in what I said now, it is heartbreaking that it took me that long. But I say it with a laugh, I say it with a smile. It's the only way move forward. Just focus on the future. And a little game I play with myself is I like to imagine that literally right now, this moment I just woke up out of the matrix and everything else leading up to this moment are false memories implanted just to give me context so that the AI of my brain can make decisions. If that were true, then that would free me up to choose what to believe because all of it's fake anyway and I can just believe what I want and then that's going to set me up and I'm going to choose to believe things that empower me. And so that sets me up for success. Now, obviously I don't actually believe that, but it reminds me that while what happened in my past is what happened, that you can choose what to focus on and how to perceive of it. So like Tony Robbins says, stop asking how the worst thing that ever happened to you is destroying your life and start asking how it's actually the best thing that ever happened to you. And if you take that frame of reference, you'll actually find that there is something to it that's powerful, that's empowering, that's positive, that you can take out of that. So there it is. All right, next question is from Darsh. This is also from the Connect inbox. I have an extreme daily routine where I wake up early 2:30am and take cold showers by 3:30am I'm studying for upcoming exams and I've done this routine for around two months and I'm beginning get fed up with it. Also, grades haven't improved much from where they were before my extreme routine, so parents think it holds no value. What can I do in order to carry on this rather brutal process without getting fed up and continue to love learning? And I think the answer is you don't. So here's the great news. Your parents are right and this is really not going to be fun for you to admit, especially if you're a teenager, which I Don't think you say one way or the other, but I get that feeling. So you're not gonna like admitting that your parents are right, but it sounds like they are right. And it doesn't sound like your routine is holding much value. If it's not improving your grades and it sucks, then doesn't seem like there's a lot going on. Now. There's a lot to be said for discipline and having that discipline in your life. But I will tell you right now, the most important thing to having discipline. You ready for this? Is to actually give a shit about the thing that you're fighting for. So if you were like, oh, I've got to get good grades, and I really want to get into the college, and I'm willing to do anything and everything to do that because I want to be a doctor or whatever, and it really requires that I get that degree. And so I want to go to a certain university. Great. Okay. If we're amped up about that and you love that, fantastic. But the getting up early, the brutal routine, the cold showers, all of that is but a path to what you really want. And what you're seeing is it's not improving your grades, you're not having a good time at it. So there's no reason to do it. So I want to be really fucking clear. So somebody the other day, and I loved this, they said that I'm the bridge between Jocko Willink and Jason Silva. I'd love to sit at that intersection. That would be amazing. But I'm not about beating myself up just for the sake of beating myself up. Now doing hard things. Like I'm deeply. I'm definitely doing a three day fast, and I'm contemplating a five. Gonna look at chase for this one. You down for a five? I'm down for a. All right, so we may do a five. I'm not. Not prepared, not prepared to commit to it yet. I know better than that. But I've spent the last few. Is really thinking about the amazing results that come out of doing things that are very hard. So there is something to get from that. But if you're finding that it's just chipping away at you and that it's not adding to your life what you hoped it would, then switch it up. Try something else. Don't be afraid of that. All right, so, yeah, with all things, don't be dogmatic. All right, next question is from George Griffith. This is Facebook. How often do you feel unmotivated with your production company? Do you ever feel like, it isn't going to go where you want it to. The amount of time that I spend there is not a lot. I don't spend a lot of time feeling unmotivated, but I definitely have moments where I'm like, whoa, is what I'm doing right now actually going to take me where I want to go? It's really fucking rare that I allow myself to even momentarily contemplate it not working at all. But I stare ruthlessly at whether or not the approach that I'm taking, the path that I'm using right now, is the right path. And so we just. Last week, I was in New York. I was meeting with the former head of one of the major comic book companies. And literally, I said, there are two questions that I have over the next two days. We spent two days together. Question one, why am I going to fail? And then question two, how do I guarantee that I succeed now? I wanted to start with why I'm going to fail. I wanted to really internalize how the path that I was on wasn't going to be the path that's going to work. And when you can really hunger for that, when you can really want that, then suddenly, even if you're spending time there and you're thinking, whoa, this isn't working, you're just looking for ways to change. You're looking for ways to increase your odds that something is going to happen. Now, one thing that I just know, true to life, is this. The struggle is guaranteed success is not. So don't get overly focused on, like, wanting the success and fantasizing about the success. It has its place, there's no question. But if that's your primary driver, it's not going to be fun. I've lived that nightmare. If, on the other hand, that's, hey, one of the things you lean on. And I used to go drive around Bel Air and here where I live now, and look at, like, the big, beautiful houses in Beverly Hills and say, one day, I want that. And it was very, very motivating for me. But then I went through a period where all I was thinking about was the financial success. And that was a total fucking disaster. So I had to find that thing in the moment. If the struggle is the only thing that's guaranteed, how can I fall in love with that? Now, if you can fall in love with that, you. Even when you have those moments where you're like, wow, this really may not work. It's like, hey, that's fine. Whether it plays out that way or not is somewhat Irrelevant. I love the process. I love what I'm learning. I love getting better. The actual act of getting better and improving, trying to solve the business problems, all of that. And then motivation again. It just comes back to, do you love that thought of what you're trying to do? Now remember, the thing that I love the thought of isn't so much the studio, although that is very exciting for me. The thing that is worth me betting my fortune on is. Is pulling people out of the matrix. That, for me, is the thing that amps me up the most that I could do. So when you find that thing, that's going to be the thing that pulls you through those unmotivating moments. So if you're having a lot of them and if you're living in that, one of two things is true. Either you're not very excited about the thing that you want and so those little grains of doubt just grab ahold of you and drag you down, or you need to ask yourself the fundamental questions which will reveal the way that you think about the world. So I don't have them memorized. I really should memorize them, but I do have them written down. I don't remember where we last posted them. We should turn these into a blog article. They'll definitely be in the book, but it's basically stuff like this. The following two things are often attributed to Einstein, though they may not actually be, but I don't care. They're fucking awesome, regardless of who said it. Number one, ask yourself, do you live in a friendly or a hostile universe? It's your choice. You get to choose. Neither is objectively true, but they're really going to influence how you see the world. Now, I think I live in a friendly universe, which means things aren't working against me, that any of the puzzles before me, from a business perspective, are very solvable, so there's no reason I can't be the one to solve them. And then the other question is, let's see if I can remember this. Also from Einstein. Nope, it's not coming quickly. So anyway, there's four questions like that that are designed to get to the whole notion of glass half full, glass half empty. And if you can realize that you get to decide that you get to choose that, you get to reinforce those things in your mind. You can choose to believe that things are working for you. You can choose to live in positivity. You can choose to be optimistic. And from that you'll find that the fears of things not working out begin to diminish over Time. Okay, next is from Hessi Williams. This is on Facebook. How do you respond when the matrix tries to draw you back in? Okay, so this doesn't really happen to me a lot anymore, but it used to happen to me all the time. And the way that I would respond is to understand that I needed to strengthen my belief system. Okay, the belief system is everything like that drives everything. It drives the way that you perceive the world. And if you focus your time and attention on solidifying that. And I really want to create an animated. That's not the right word. An illustrated like you get in the seat back pocket of an airline that shows you how to escape in an emergency. I want to drive home the following two things for people. These are the two core tenets of developing a growth mindset. Like literally the tactics. Number one, what you repeat in your head, what you think about, will manifest in the wiring of your brain. Those thoughts will become easier and you will think them more rapidly and more frequently. So it becomes a self reinforcing cycle. Whatever it is you think about, positive or negative, it is going to wire in your brain through a process called myelination, where fatty tissue is wrapped around the connection points between your neurons. The electrical impulse can travel faster. The brain always wants to do. It's easier. And since thinking in that network then becomes easier due to the myelination process, you just find yourself in those loops over and over and over. Okay, the second thing is what you say out loud then is in a similar way going to create congruence for you, and you're going to act in accordance with that. It's what other people expect of you, it's what you expect of yourself. So between what you think over and over and over, which becomes very easy, and then what you say, which you'll want to act in congruence with, those two things determine your life. So really leveraging that in order to stay out of the Matrix, in order to reinforce your positive belief system, that's what you're going to lean on. That's certainly what I leaned on. And now, because I've done that so much, so much, so much that even when negative ideas try to come into my head, they encounter a thousand different positive jiu jitsu moves that end up forcing that thought to become positive. So the way that I explain it, if you want to look up a pachinko machine, I think it's P A C I P A C H I K O N K O, something like that anyway, it'll pop up if you get close Enough. And it, that image it had, they have all these metal rods and so there's a place to drop like a ball or a coin or something at the top and then it bounces around those metal things and then ultimately gets taken out a chute. So the way that I think about it is the ball is that negative impulse and all the metal rods that it's bouncing on are the positive beliefs that I have that the ball has to encounter. And then the final place that those positive things move the ball towards is action. And ultimately you want to take action that's positive in nature, that is going to move you towards what you want. All right, next question. And it's pachinko P A C H I N K O. Thank you, Shaz. Much obliged. All right, next question is from Sarb Jadav. That one, that one tested me, not going to lie. Why do so many people feel they are behind in whatever they are achieving? There must be some reason. Can you give us some small explanation please? So I don't know, but follow my logic. Our brain is meant to keep us safe. And in all of that, one of the mechanisms that it uses is basically self flagellation. So hey, dummy, you did that thing. Why'd you do that thing? You shouldn't do that again, like you should just cower in the corner over here because it's better to be on the bottom and safe than be on the top and at risk. Now some collateral damage to that is we tend to just self flagellate about virtually everything. We're not good enough, we're not worthy. We compare ourselves to, we know where we fit in the hierarchy, which is terrifyingly, deeply ingrained in us. So understanding that your brain is at all times trying to figure out where you sit in the hierarchy in order to keep you safe, you can see how your brain is erring on the side of making sure that you don't try to climb too far, too fast to put yourself at risk to overstep where you are in the hierarchy and put you at risk of being ejected from the group. Okay, so if that's what our brain is trying to do, then you can imagine how you just start saying negative shit to yourself even when it's not about that. So when you get to something like, oh my God, I didn't do this fast enough, that your default is still just to beat yourself up. So you're gonna have to train yourself out of that process. It's very simple. It's not easy, it takes time, but it is very simple. And it just comes from literal affirmations and reminding yourself that that doesn't matter. Reminding yourself that you're only going to believe and do that which moves you towards your goals. Reminding yourself that it doesn't matter who you are today, it only matters who you're willing to become. The price you're willing to get there, on and on and on. If you want more of them, go right now to impacttheory.com and download the 25 point belief system. Those are the 25 things that I just reinforce in my mind. All right, next question is from Natalia Telish. This is from Facebook. It's no secret that the American education system is outdated. What sorts of things do you think should be incorporated to the education of today's children? What concepts or courses do you think are obsolete and can be completely removed? Okay, well, I am not an expert on this, but follow my logic and if you agree, fantastic. Anything that involves rote memorization just does not make sense in a world where you have a supercomputer in your pocket and like Chase did with pachinko, you can look something up instantly. Nobody really values you for your ability to remember facts and figures like that if you can just look them up. So anything around that I think you can just disregard. Anything on the other hand, that's focused on problem solving, on thinking creatively, on building an empowering mindset, those are the things that I think we either need to focus more on if they're already there or really inject into the system if they're not. Nobody taught me how to think in high school or grade school or middle school to terrifying consequence. And so if we were baking that into the education system, I think that people would be way better off because it's at the foundation level. And anything that we can do to teach people how to think in an empowering manner, how to learn in an efficient way, efficient manner, things like that are going to be really, really empowering. And then also just being able to problem solve, which I think a lot of people don't realize how many problems they actually can solve. And that was something that took me a long time to have faith in myself, to believe in the process, to understand how you go about learning about something and then actually executing, taking action, that those are the only things that matter, that momentum matters, literally. In fact, here's what they should do. They should take my YouTube videos and my Instagram feed and they should just make that standard curriculum. That's my answer. There you go. Because those are all the things that I Wish I'd learned. All right, next up is Jacques Botha, YouTube. Hi Tom, I'm a nice guy. If you've ever heard of R forward slash, R forward slash, nice guys. That would terrify you with all the nice guy tendencies and find that people talk over me in group conversations. How do I make myself heard without being an asshole? Shock.
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Tom Bilyeu
You ready? What's the the woman in the Matrix says, I hate giving good people bad news. The Oracle the reality is, if people are talking over you, chances are that what you're saying just isn't that interesting. And that's the cold, hard truth. And so rather than focusing on techniques in groups, I would really focus on for your own sake, just because you love it. Go dive into something that you dig and learn about it and get really good at it. And then if it's meaningful to you, which I don't necessarily know that it should be, but if it's meaningful to you to be able to perform in social situations, you can do everything from very mild practice at that to very extreme practice at that. Like going to a group like, can't believe I'm blanking on the name of this. Say it again. Yes. Thank you, Cindy. Coming through, Toastmasters, which will let you get up and give speeches and practice that kind of thing. And it is very much a learnable skill. But I would say first and foremost, the real thing is to make sure that you've got interesting things in your arsenal to say that people really want to hear about and that those are, by the way, two different things. There can be things that you're really interested in, but people don't give a shit about. Like comics, for instance. I really want to talk about comics a lot in this feed, and I don't, because I know that most people are interested. And by the way, I really want your guys's opinion on this. Do you guys know about Vero? So we're debating internally on Vero, because my Instagram feed, my Facebook feed, my YouTube feed, all already are geared towards mindsets straight up, like, you know, where to go if you want that stuff. Now, on the other hand, what we're building with Impact Theory Studios is all about showing people how they can extract usable information through narrative. So whether that's a comic book, a TV show, movie, video games, whatever, anything that houses narrative, I think there are a lot of incredibly powerful lessons that are only accessible when told in an emotive way. So that's why I'm obsessed with that. So I'm thinking about on Vero doing a feed that's entirely around that. Things that I'm reading, what we're working on on from a comic book standpoint, movies, that kind of stuff. So be very curious to know if that would be interesting. I get it. To a very small subset of you, A and B, or if B people would rather another outlet for the exact same stuff, because right about now it would be copy and paste from IG onto Vero. So anyway, want your feedback on that. So, Jacques, that was an aside on how I know not to just go full blown on comics. I know why people are showing up here to this feed, and so I tailor my comments to that. And then the last thing I'll say on this, which I probably should have said first, because it's actually the most important. If you want to be interesting, be interested, ask a lot of questions, find out more about people, learn about them. If you look at my style of interviewing, I went from not existing and everybody telling me that I would never be able to build the show, to building the show growing very rapidly and getting just incredible, incredible human beings on the show by asking a better caliber of question. And the way that I do that is simply by learning more about that person and those topics than most people are going to put in the effort to learn. So in knowing a lot about it, the thing it actually empowers you to do is ask better questions and engage with people. People love talking about themselves. So the more that you can engage them that way, I think you'll find that people then start gravitating towards you. One of the the most powerful tools as a social animal is to understand if you can make other people feel better about themselves when they're around you, then they want to be around you. And that man, that is like the sun, the yellow sun to Superman, just to sneak in a comic book reference. So get after that, I think you'll find it very, very useful. All right, next question is from Dana and Anthony Mott. This is on Facebook. I finished Principles by Ray Dalio. Nice. I have an organization slightly different than a Traditional structure. How did you initially introduce the concepts to your team? What obstacles did you face? I want to implement the right way. Okay. So I don't consider myself an expert on implementing this because we're still in the process of doing it. But it looked like this. I started reading the book at Chase's recommendation. Who, by the way, what's your IG feed? Chap C H A Y C H A Y C A P. He's going to start talking about the books that he's reading on his Instagram feed. I highly encourage you guys to follow him. He right now, of all the human beings on the planet earth, no one recommends more books that I then actually go on to read than Chase. So I'm telling you, there's something about where he's at in his journey in life. I don't know what it is. He's got his finger on some pulse. But. But he told me to read Principles. He bugged me about it forever. And this was at a phase when I was still ignoring his book recommendations. And then finally I read it. It was so fucking good that I was like, whatever this kid tells me to read, I'm going to read. And he's just been an insane wealth of information. Okay, so anyway, I read Principles changes my life. I come in and I tell people, hey, I'm reading this book. It's really freaking me out. It's so fucking good. And it made me feel badly about myself because it was so well written and I was just talking about it obsessively and as I started getting deeper into the book. And by the way, this is all part of the strategy, share it with people, to give them early information to let them know what I'm thinking. So I'm not just surprising them one day with a new like, you know, 86 page workbook, whatever the fuck they call those things, manual for the company and saying this is how we are now. It was walking them through my thinking, telling them why the book was hitting me so hard, what it was about it that I thought was really going to be amazing, being super vulnerable about how I hadn't used it at Quest. And I thought that it was really cause problems culturally and that I used to really pride myself on the kind of culture that I was able to build and then realizing that it was fine. It was actually awesome when we were really small and it was absolute garbage as we got bigger. And so all of that was my fault. And the answers all lie within that book. And so I'm telling them all of this stuff. And then finally I said, look, we are going to be implementing this in the company. I believe in it that strongly. And so it's required reading. I need everybody to read the book. And I gave them. Since I had started talking about it was probably six weeks before we finally met and discussed it. But I gave them originally two weeks. And then at the two week mark, we realized people needed more time, so we extended it to an additional two weeks. So people had about four weeks to read the book. And then we had a big meeting where in true principles fashion, we had everybody talk about what they liked, what they didn't like, what scared them, what they were amped up about, all that. And then we've since started implementing it. So things like the error log was a pretty cool way to get people to start engaging with principals because they got to see firsthand. I was the first person to put an entry in to say I'd messed something up. And there it was for everyone to see. And then as other people started entering things in the error log and they saw, hey, I didn't get fired and I admitted something, you know, that I messed up and it was pretty bad or whatever. And we talked about what are we going to learn from that and all of that and then just reinforcing it and having those painful, sometimes super awkward conversations that slow meetings down, but showing that principles are a priority that people can criticize from the bottom up, from the top down, side to side, whatever. All right, I can feel that I could do an entire episode on that. I'm going to stop there. But yeah, I'd like to think there are other people talking about implementation online. I don't know that, but it'd be really interesting if you do the work for both of us and find out if that's true and then ping me and let me know if there are, because I'd like to learn as well. But that's what I've been doing so far. Okay, next question is from crafty B on YouTube. Tom. I'm a lazy ass, but I'm death. But I desperately want to have self discipline. How can I start to build up self discipline and how can I keep it up and now go back to my lazy tendencies? Okay, the only thing that matters in all of this is do you actually want the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? And what is that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? So you need to know very clearly what your goals are. That goal needs to be something that you really, really like. And it can't just be. I don't want to be lazy. It can't just be. I want to have discipline. So discipline is just a tool. Laziness, I think, is most people's default state. Remember that energetically as a species, we're way better off conserving our energy than expending. Expending it, unless we're expending it in service of something. So if you're running after a gazelle or whatever, to take it down, okay, cool, that's going to make a lot of sense because you're going to eat. But for the most part, like most of us like to just sit around. And that's why in our modern conveniences, it becomes really problematic because people don't necessarily enjoy going out and doing hard labor, hard things. You get some people that get endorphin releases from running and stuff like that. I'm not one of them, so I can't speak to that. But understanding that neither of those things are the thing in and of themselves. So the laziness hints at what we just talked about. And then the, the discipline is meant to be the thing that gets you to, that you really care deeply about. So identifying that thing that you care deeply about, that is step one. Now, assuming that that thing gives you more energy than it takes away, then all of a sudden the discipline really becomes about tactics far more than it becomes about how do I do this? How do I keep this up? How do I make sure that I don't slide back? I think people slide back because they don't care about the thing that they're chasing. They tried to pretend and tell people that they did, but in reality they're not being honest with themselves, which I think is a pen that people aren't honest with themselves about what they like. Now those are the easy ones to understand. Now onto my personal, like pet obsession. And I want to make this change in the world. You want to talk about one very specific impact that I want to have on the world. I want to teach people how to fan the flames of interest, to turn them into raging infernos of passion. Passion is not hiding inside of you. If you don't feel it's because it's not there. You have to create it now. You create it from something real, that spark of interest. But don't ever expect your intuition to do anything more than whisper to you. Don't expect, expect moments of interest to be like a lightning rod. And suddenly it's this deep passion. It's going to be something that you're like, whoa, I like that. It's kind of cool. I like being around it. I like the imagery, the people, the whatever. There's something that draws you into that world. Go engage with it. Find out if it turns into a real fascination, if it does, and you find, wow, like, I really enjoy this. I lose track of time. This is a lot of fun. Then you're going to go down the process of gaining mastery, and in the process of gaining mastery and fanning those flames of interest, telling people how much you like it. And this is the one people miss. Embodying that excitement. Like I do during an ama, I embody my excitement to remind myself how much I like serving this community. Okay, I do that on purpose. I modulate my physicality, I modulate my voice. I do all of that so that I really actually feel the passion. Remember, the physical hooks into something, Work into getting into your mind as much as getting into your mind then creates physicality. Okay? Those are really important things to understand. So once you start doing that, you know how to fan those flames, then all of the sudden, the discipline just becomes tactical. And then you can use things like bright lines and rules. Like, I get out of bed in 10 minutes or less. Simple as the first thing I do is work out. Simple as. So it's like you just start putting these rules in place and then telling people what you do, making your identity known to not only yourself, but to other people so that you have congruence working for you. All right, next question. Jose Gabriel Gonzalez. This is from Facebook. Tom, how did your life's mission evolve over time to the point at which it is now? Did you just wake up one day with the idea of building a studio that would get people out of the Matrix, or did you slowly polish the idea over time? How did the process look for you? Okay, so definitely was not a lightning rod moment. When I was 12, I thought I wanted to be a filmmaker. I was gung ho for that. I loved it. I poured my energy into it. I tried to get good at it. All the things that I just walked you guys through, and I found that the more that I did it, the more I enjoyed it. So I went to film school. I graduated film school. That's a long story, but I graduated film school feeling very frustrated. I don't know how to break into the industry. I feel completely lost. Then people introduced me to the idea that if I want to control my art, I have to control my resources. Now, in this time, I Big brother for this kid in South Central Los Angeles. And later he moved to Compton. And seeing that kind of horrifying world, I realized, whoa, like, this kid's life is dramatically different simply because of where he grew up. He's no less intelligent than I am, but he perceives the world so radically different than me, so that plants a seed. Then I start Quest as a way to. To get wealthy, control the resources, help people. That's a long story. I'm actually doing a terrible job of summarizing that. But anyway, we start Quest and we end up having about 1400 employees. And the vast majority of them grew up in the inner cities and reminded me of the kid that I used to big brother for. And I realized, whoa, their lives are going to be radically different, not because I'm smarter, but because I perceive the world differently. I have a different belief system. And because of that, I do different things with my life. I take different actions. And that really freaked me out. I did not like that in any way, shape or form. And so I started thinking, okay, if Quest was my answer to how do you, at scale, get people healthy? You create food that they choose based on taste and it happens to be good for them, rather than telling them to eat less and exercise more, which doesn't work, what would that solution be? To at scale, give people that belief system? And I realized, whoa, all of my training and all of my love and passion for filmmaking may come back into play here. And so as I looked at that problem and thought, what's the no answer to transmitting belief system at scale at a level that actually impacts culture? And the only thing I can believably conceive of is given where the world is, with the way that media is today, social media and traditional, that it was ripe for this moment for somebody to come in and use social content to preach to the choir and then use traditional content to preach to people who are all the way to being antagonistic towards change. And over generations, I think that these ideas will seep into the culture. And I think that that's incredibly powerful. So that. That's how I came to that. Now, it also happens that that initial feeling that I had for helping people, which I love, it gives me so much energy. And so you put all that together and it just made a lot of sense. But it was not overnight. There were multiple times where if you'd asked me, I would have said I had a completely different passion and mission. So. So there you have it.
- [34:55]
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- [35:26]
Tom Bilyeu
Amanda Kofi this is Facebook. I'm having concerns with positive thinking and affirmations. So I'm in the process of changing my thoughts to positive ones. I found myself worried about some music I listened to. Example, Bad at Love lyric. Can music cross over to our subconscious thoughts? Not only can it, it's probably one of the most potent ways because it's a motive. So going back to what I was just saying about why I think think that narrative is so powerful is it grabs us at the limbic level, the emotional level, and can really transmit things subconsciously, things you're not even thinking about assimilating into your life. That's why I say that it works with people who are even antagonistic towards taking that in. So a hundred percent. Now, that doesn't mean that, like, I only listen to music if it's positive, but I'm not afraid to listen to music that isn't positive if it's really catchy. Because I have so many mechanisms in place to make sure that I don't adopt that as my belief system. But if in the beginning you're struggling with it, yeah, like just aim yourself at stuff that's empowering and positive, it will only help. But I would be lying if I said I didn't take in a broad swath of stuff. But like I was talking about earlier with Vero, the team was asking me, well, would you just talk about every comic book you read? And I said no, I would stay totally on brand with mindset and empowerment and I would only talk about those things. But just by way of full disclosure, I take in all kinds of stuff. But like with Impact Theory Studios, which by the way, for anybody out there who ever watches movie reviews, TV reviews, any of that stuff, if you are interested in the intersection of empowerment and pop culture, go to YouTube.com impacttheorystudios we have a show right now. It's our first of what will hopefully be many shows called Real Impact, where we break down movies and TV shows that have awesome mindset angles. So yeah, that was a long way of saying if it's fucking with you, then just do positivity. That certainly won't Hurt. All right, next up, Will Collette, Facebook. Our unit likes to solve problems with meetings. I'm in at least one a day, and they take at least an hour. I hate them. What's your advice? To get rid of these. They often don't result in productive action and solve problems another way. Okay, so I have a very complicated relationship with meetings. I hate the vast majority of meetings, but some meetings are very much critical, and the team needs to understand where everybody is. You need to be able to communicate things that get people moving. And I think the key to making sure that a meeting is useful is making sure that you have action items. Making sure that there's a thesis. This meeting is meant to do this and we're going to cover this. We expect these people to have this prepared. And then at the end of the meeting to summarize everything up and say, this is what we've learned and these are the action items. Now go. If you don't leave a meeting saying these the action items, now go, then chances are that the meeting only at best communicated directional ideas. But it is not going to help people create momentum. So you have to be very, very, very careful with that. So that is my only advice. Now. I wake up in a cold sweat sometimes at the thought of working in an organization somewhere in middle management where I have ideas, like about Ray Dalio's principles. But I'm in an organization where they're not going to listen to me. That's terrifying. I have possible solutions to that, but I don't want to bullshit people. I know how lame that would be. And that's why I highly encourage people to interview the job as much as the job is interviewing you before you take on a position. Because I can think of nothing that will rob you of your joy in life, your actual will to live more rapidly than spending more than 50% of your waking hours in a job you hate. And also. Can I flip it for a second? As an employer, it fucking drives me nuts that people just come in and hate their job silently. That also was a crime against humanity. So we've got crimes on both sides. If you're creating an environment where people can't thrive crime. And if you're in an environment and not fucking speaking up and staying there and being a subversive asshole, also a crime. So work for an organization that has principles, so that if you hate your job that you're not beaten up for saying something and for presenting ideas on how to change it. I want. If people hate their job here, I want to Know, because I need people that are thriving anyway. The most selfish thing that somebody can do as a boss is create an environment where people can thrive. All right, Laron, Graham, Tom, with that exclamation, with all the books you read, how do you balance between implementing the principles and getting bogged down with analysis paralysis? Okay, so I have a hard and fast rule. The only thing that matters is action. The only thing that matters is creating momentum. And this pisses my team off sometimes. And one point of collision for my wife and I is I give up about momentum. She's a little more protective, hedging the downside, which is actually good to have in an organization. But at the same time, I'm telling you right now, at the beginning, the only thing that matters is taking action. So I'm not reading a book to read it. I'm reading a book to take something out of it and act immediately. So from the time that I read Principles, in fact, I started telling people we were implementing principles before I finished the fucking book, because it was that good. So I'm always looking for ways to take action. So. So take action, my friends. When you read something, act on it as immediately and grandly as humanly possible. Emmanuel Vecchiarini, Facebook. Hi, Tom. I have a passion for musical composition, and I find really hard to picture a future where my passion will allow me to make money. I need to live. How would you handle this situation? So it really comes down to, are you being honest with what you need to make in order to live, or is there a certain amount of money that's just more important to you? So the way that I break this down for people, you've got the Tony Hawk principle on one hand, which, as long as you're doing, you're able to eat. Doing the thing that you love, you've already won. That is success. Okay? And he said the only reason that he went on to be as successful as he was is in the dearth of, like, the late 80s, early 90s, when no one gave a shit about skateboarding. There was no money to be made, and he was making just enough to feed himself off of Taco Bell and sandwiches by skateboarding in the parking lot of Six Flags. He came out the other side because he was so into it. He loved it so much that he just kept progressing when everybody else gave up on the sport. So when the sport came back, he was the only one that had been skating consistently. So of course, he was way farther ahead than everybody else who had stopped and given up because it couldn't make enough money to survive. He just down regulated what enough money meant because he loved it that much. So that's something you have to answer for yourself. Nobody can answer that for you. Now, if, on the other hand, you're like, hey, there's a certain amount of money, there's a certain quality of life that I would like to be accustomed to, then just be honest. Where are the overlaps between your passion, what you love, and what you can get paid to do with the world values? Find that overlap and try to exist right in that thing or do what I call universe of so maybe you want to be a soccer player, but you're just not good enough to make a living at it. Well, you can go and be a ref, you could go and be a coach, you could be an analyst, you could be a journalist, write about sports. So there's a thousand ways to be in that universe, even if you can't be the player that you want to be. So those are my answers to that. All right, next up, David Gomez from Facebook. Tom how to manage returning to the habit of going to bed early. Considering I go out at night every other Friday, I think there's something in the question that I'm supposed to get that I don't get. So if you're going out on Friday and you're saying that that's fucking up your whole routine, then I would say that. That you can't accept weakness from yourself. That. That just sounds super wussy to me. So even so, I stay up late on the weekend, so I stay up late on Friday, I stay up late on Saturday, and then I go to bed at my normal time on Sunday like fucking clockwork. And if I had to, I would just set an alarm on Monday morning, which would make me. Or Sunday is way better. I would set an alarm on Sunday so that I make sure that I'm tired when I need to go to bed Sunday night. So if you really just want to party your ass off on Friday and Saturday, set an alarm on Sunday, get your ass out of bed. This. This is one of those, like, either put rules in place so that you do it or just admit that you don't give a shit about it. But this is like the easiest thing in the universe to actually start doing. If you care enough about getting up early, you're gonna go to bed on time. That's just that. And I think that the human sleep cycle is flexible enough, you could stay up late on a Friday and a Saturday and still go to bed on time. On a Sunday. But if it's really hard for you, then start doing things like setting the alarm, taking melatonin. There's all kinds of shit you could do. All right, so Lindsay shoots. Yeah. Hey, Tom. I find myself feeling intimidated by talking with others who are more intellectual than I am. Despite that, I'm trying to pitch in where I can, knowing I can learn. What is a good question to ask others to learn from them and open the door for almost mentorship kinds of relationships, so kinds of discussions. So my like go to question is, what's your deepest passion? One, it gets people's attention because it catches them off guard. They're not used to people asking about that. And two, if you really want to find out what somebody knows about and loves and is going to be willing to mentor, start getting them talking about something that they are deeply passionate about that is absolutely critical. People love talking about themselves and they love talking about the things that they love. So that is just one of the dead simple, simplest, easy ways. Now, now if I can give you a gift, if you'd be so kind, lean in close and hear what I say. Don't worry about looking stupid ever. That is one of the greatest superpowers I could give you. Go into any conversation knowing, sure you're not as intellectual as everybody else. I will tell you right now. The thing that allowed me to break free of being an employee and become an employer and building companies was I was so beyond fearless about looking stupid. And not because I was unaware of it by the way. I was hyper aware of the sideways glances, the chuckling behind my back, all of that. And I just said, I'm never going to be held back by being afraid to look stupid. And so I would charge in any conversation. I wouldn't try to take it over. I wasn't an. But like, if I didn't understand something, I said, I don't understand that. And I would push them and try to get them to clarify things. I would repeat it back to them and see, am I actually understanding this? And if I wasn't, like, I would keep digging until I really got it. And I was never afraid to ask. And that's the key. If you don't know, don't pretend that you know, go in and ask, but ask knowing that those questions, they will reveal that you don't know something. They will be embarrassing and people may in fact laugh at you. But if you keep going, you're going to laugh. Last of this, I assure you. Because you will have the knowledge and only the People who aren't afraid to look stupid accumulate enough knowledge to really dominate later. So look at yourself on a long timeline. That's a critical part. All right, we're at the end of today's ama, guys. Thank you so much for joining me. And don't forget, if you're at all interested in optimizing cognitively, we have launched a new show called called Health theory. It's on YouTube. Check it out. Our first episode dropped today with the legend Mark Sisson. Would love for you guys to go there. And by the way, if you consider yourself an impactivist, I have one ask. Be open minded and positive. That's it. Be open minded and positive. I don't want to get. In fact, I'll never fucking debate you. That's so uninteresting to me. I cannot begin to tell you how uninterested I am in convincing people that I know something. What I am interested in is learning and providing people with tools that they can use. So there is something so weird about exercise, diet, nutrition. It brings out a dogmatic zealotry in people that drives me bananas. So one way you can support this community would be to just go and be positive. Or it's okay to be silent. There are many times where people come on the show, they say something that I totally disagree with, but I don't sit there and debate them because it shuts them down. It makes them not want to talk. It gets so weird. So please, guys, one thing that this community has been so amazing, there's been so much positivity in the comments. It's unlike anything I've ever seen in my life. I don't want to see that change. I think we've put together a show that is incredibly powerful. Be open minded. As Bruce Lee said, assimilate what works, discard what doesn't, and add your own a hundred percent. So get after it. Mad shout out to Lisa and Michelle, who've really made Health Theory what it is. So if you follow either of them, give them a shout out. Show them some love. If you like the show, I'm super proud of it. It. So go check it out. Health theory on YouTube. All right, guys, thank you again. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Peace.
- [47:45]
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